31 January 2016 1:12 AM

The biggest scandals go on for years because they are so huge that nobody notices them. We stand and watch outrageous things going on, thinking that everything is all right because nobody else is making a fuss.

The new film about the 2008 bank collapse, The Big Short, makes this point perfectly. Anyone who wanted to could see the great lending boom was based on garbage, worthless loans that would never be repaid.

But most people didn’t want to. And even now we shy away from the blatant truth. The film’s makers, realising how easily our attention wanders, hired the Australian actress Margot Robbie to sit in a bathtub, naked except for a few thousand symbolic bubbles, to explain sub-prime mortgages in simple (and very crude) English.

The Big Short’s makers, realising how easily our attention wanders, hired the Australian actress Margot Robbie to sit in a bathtub, naked except for a few thousand symbolic bubbles, to explain sub-prime mortgages in simple (and very crude) English

How I wish I could afford to hire her to explain the equally shocking truth about the vast ‘antidepressant’ scandal that goes on all around us.

But, just as banks and investors were willing – if blinkered – accomplices in the mad folly that ripped the West’s economy to bits eight years ago, many doctors and decent men and women are complicit in the Great Happy Pills Delusion.

Doctors can get plenty of rewards from drug companies for promoting their pills. Invitations to conferences at five-star hotels, with diving, golf and fishing laid on are not unknown. Others are paid to write apparently unbiased articles in medical journals praising a company’s drugs.

But even those who don’t accept this are often relieved to have something, anything, to prescribe to the dozens of unhappy patients who seek their help. If they and the patient believe these pills work, then, in a way, they will. So would inert pills made of chalk, as it happens.

If only Margot Robbie could be hired tp explain the equally shocking truth about the vast ‘antidepressant’ scandal that goes on all around us, in which many decent men and women are complicit

And so the patients, too, are recruited into the ‘antidepressants saved me from misery’ campaign. There’ll be some in every street and workplace, given that more than 53 million prescriptions for these drugs are dispensed in the UK to about four million people every year.

The trouble is that rigorous science, in which they are tested against sugar pills, increasingly doubts that they do work. And, worse still, there is worrying evidence that the side effects of some of these drugs may be very serious indeed.

Now, in the respected pages of the British Medical Journal, comes a stinging report, carefully analysing 70 trials of ‘antidepressants’, which found that some common drugs of this kind actually double the risk of suicide and aggressive behaviour in under-18s.

This, by the way, does not mean that adults are unaffected. The drug companies’ research repeatedly under-reported deaths and episodes of self-harm by tested patients.

A drug that does not really work is one thing. A drug whose users harm themselves (or others) is another.

The vast extent of this problem and the huge sums of NHS money spent on it may make media and politicians think it must be all right. But they thought the same about sub-prime mortgages. And it was not all right. Nor is this.

Our crazy war on savers

In Japan now they are starting to charge people for keeping healthy credit balances in the bank. It is called ‘negative interest’ and is part of a vicious war on savers under way all over the world. It’s pretty intensive here too. Those who voted Tory in 2010 to ‘get Gordon Brown out’ might ponder George Osborne’s relentless Brown-style raids on private pension funds, punishing and robbing dedicated savers with extra taxes, to subsidise Google’s tax breaks.

The same goes for ‘quantitative easing’, designed to push small investors into putting their cash into risky places to get any return at all. Those who refuse have their interest-free bank balances slowly drained by inflation (which is supposed to have disappeared, but hasn’t). How long before there’s ‘negative interest’ too? Destroying the savings and hopes of the middle classes is what, in the end, led to Germany’s gruesome descent into fanatical madness in the 1930s.

It helped put Vladimir Putin in power in Moscow. It is deeply irresponsible politics as well as deeply irresponsible economics.

I think I could just about bear it, even so, if people didn’t keep telling me what a great and righteous Chancellor George Osborne is. It is, once again, a lie so huge that they get away with it.

So now all of us must live in the knowledge that a double murderer, with severe psychiatric problems, is living secretly among us. I defy anyone to say with total assurance that it is safe to let him out. His crime is said to have been horrific. But he has been released into the ‘community’. He is in his 40s, but we cannot know his new name, or his old one, or where he is or what he does.

This is thanks to our ‘Supreme Court’ (the name is itself a lie, for it is not supreme at all, but subject to Parliament and also the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg).

These exalted personages overruled four wiser judges, and common sense. If they have made a terrible mistake, how will they be made to pay for it?

Last week I finally underwent root canal dentistry, the lurking ill-defined horror that lies in wait for the middle-aged. Well, I am here to report that it was nothing like as bad as most of the things I have heard it compared to. And it was far less gruelling, protracted and demoralising than trying to extract an apology for wrongdoing from the BBC, or a Left-wing newspaper, or from a railway company – all activities I have been engaged in during the past few weeks.

Not all Gas and Gaiters

The Archbishop of Canterbury has had a nasty surprise. It follows the Church of England’s decision to publicise, in national media, an unproven claim of child abuse against the long-dead Bishop George Bell, one of the C of E’s few genuinely great men.

Now Justin Welby has had a stonking letter from Bishop Bell’s niece, Barbara Whitley, telling him off. Mrs Whitley,91 and with a mind as sharp as a guillotine, wrote to the Prelate: ‘My uncle was an extremely holy, private man. A deep thinker with many engagements and a loving, helpful wife. I am convinced he would not have done any such thing’.

This must have come as something of a surprise, since the C of E’s bureaucrats had assumed George Bell had no living relatives.

You would have thought Mrs Whitley, herself the daughter of a Bishop, deserved a swift and personal reply. But Archbishop Welby passed the matter to a subordinate. Mrs Whitley has written to him again, protesting that her Uncle’s name is being smeared. I do hope he writes back himself, this time.

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On the EU vote: I recall Mr Hitchens telling us not to vote for UKIP in the General Election, or not to bother? In fact many did, over 4 million, only to see that party commit hari kiri after their success. So is Mr H urging a kind of manichean view of politics, an unchristian withdrawal from the physical world as evil, as Augustine before his conversion? The Jehovah's Witnesses adopt this stance, don't vote, it sullies your spiritual state. I like Mr H's work and agree with most of his diagnoses. What I do not agree with is a sort of nilihistic hopelessness, which is more gnostic than Christian: if we believe in Christ we must keep our hope that history has a purpose, a goal and end, that injustice will be judged and the kingdom will come finally. Jesus initiated the kingdom in his life and ministry: and as St Paul tells us 'we do not lose heart', 2. Cor 4.

Please keep reminding the public that our political overlords continue to tax savers and manipulate the interest rate in an attempt to maintain power. Throughout my life I have repeatedly found myself at the wrong end of the boom-bust business cycle created by their failed economic policies. I refinanced my student loans when interest rates where exorbitantly high. I bought a house at the top of the housing boom and sold it at the trough of the bust. Now I want to buy another house but am afraid we are once again at the top of a bubble. How can an individual build any wealth riding the economic roller-coaster that we're all on???

On what basis do you assert that the EU is ‘keen to expunge all idiosyncratic national culture from within its compass’? How is British culture being put to death? To be clear, I suspect that neither you nor I are experts on exactly what the EU is and isn’t issuing directives and regulations on, and I’ve no doubt that a proportion of this legislation is not absolutely necessary. But it just seems way over the top to bang on about the death of British culture.

(On the democracy point, isn’t the absence of EU political manifestos a failing on the part of candidate MEPs? It doesn’t mean that there’s something inherently wrong with the democratic process.)

"I seem to remember you writing a few months ago – after your return to the blog, I think – that whatever the economic arguments for and against being in the EU you just didn’t like the thing on an instinctive level and so wanted out."

I don't remember advancing an 'instinctive' argument for leaving the EU. I have always taken the view that the EU is anti-democratic and that this disqualifies membership off the bat. All the prosperity in the world is of no consequence if liberty reduces to zero. As I have remarked elsewhere, the Germans from 1933 on had never had it better. There was every reason to support the Nazi regime on grounds of prosperity and the comforts and security of the all-providing welfare state. There was no reason to remove them. Milton Meyer in his 'They Thought They Were Free' is persuasive on this point.

"That’s fair enough – an honest approach, which doesn’t need you to make things up as I think you’re doing in these latest posts."

What have I "made up"? The incremental replacement of parliamentary legislation by streaming EU directives? I don't think so. The demotion of the British parliament to secondary importance? I don't think so. The continual overriding of British judicial decisions by the European Court? I don't think so.

Could one make up any of the thousands of interferences in what used to known as the British way of life by a EU keen to expunge all idiosyncratic national culture from within its compass? I don't think so. You may not think these needless and desire-less interferences of any overall consequence - perhaps you think them trivial given that they are in exchange for Britain's place at the 'top table' and having a bigger 'voice' - but the death of British culture by the cuts of a billion unwanted directives and regulations is important to me - and a lot of others.

The EU is a sham democracy to the extent that it is a democracy at all - we elect Euro MPs to the European Parliament. But there is no EU political manifesto on which these MPs are elected. They are simply elected to represent British interests. What on earth does that mean when most of the MPs elected are pro-EU?

If you can offer me an example of a sham democracy which at some point declares an end to bureaucratic expansion and voluntarily reverts to an actual democracy then I should be pleased to hear of it.

Daniel Hannan in his 'Inventing Freedom' makes the point that the nations of continental Europe are natural 'regulation monkeys'. They see nothing awry with having every aspect of life regulated from the top down. If it's not illegal it must be regulated. That is not our way, which is: if it's not illegal we are free to do as we please.

Colm J
I think you're missing the point (which I know usually means that the point hasn't been expressed very clearly).

On the difference between "anti-depressant" and "happy pill" see Rowan Allman's comment below. It's difficult to convey to someone without experience just how laughably (as in "ha bloody ha!") inappropriate the term "happy pill" is. (And I still say that it has a hint of contempt about it, which is unhelpful at best).

In an effort to be clear about what it is I'm referring to (but not to pretend that what I say is in any way authoritative!): Severe depression appears to result from a combination of stress and a relatively fragile nervous system. As Rowan Allman says, social and psychological - but also physical. (Just as our security services, bless them, can induce psychosis, so they can induce severe depression - the fragility of the nervous system is relative and sufficient stress will damage most - those who are immune tend to be in the SAS!)

On closing down debate, you do misunderstand what I said, but also touch on what I think is a very good question.

I think Mr. Hitchens would be doing a public good were he to press appropriately for action on the anti-depressant scandal (it's not just anti-depressants, by the way). Indeed, I'm wittering on here precisely because I think he is one of the people in a position to make a noise about it - and he is making a botch of it for the reasons I have outlined (which do not preclude blowing a well-justified raspberry at the medical profession on a regular basis).

Making a noise about it does not require him to stray beyond his competence. Nor does it require him to make insinuations that are potentially harmful to people in distress.

The question you raise, which I think an excellent question, and one that is ever more important to address, is, How can we lay people keep the experts honest? We rely on them but can't always tell when we shouldn't. How is our reliance on expert elites compatible with democracy?

Thucydides.
I think this because it is unlikely that people who are not in favour of the EU idea would apply for a job in one of its departments or would be unlikely to be accepted .
I have no knowledge of the actual job description however .
The actions & words of the politicians i mentioned suggest they are in favour of the UK being in the EU .

Ewan: I'm still not sure I fully understand the crucial distinction between the terms "happy pill" and "anti-depressant". Freud believed man's natural state was one of mild depression, so if he was correct, this would imply that the purpose of an anti-depressant is to make the user happy. But even if one disagrees with Freud on this, there's still no huge semantic leap of logic involved in calling a drug that bills itself as a remedy for depression, a happiness drug.

As for your notion that PH should refrain from expressing an opinion on matters in which he is not academically qualified, that's an argument for allowing the academic establishment in any given field to dictate opinion completely unchallenged. Academic qualifications are no guarantee of either infallibility or disinterestedness. The proof of that is the fact that established medical opinion on diet, exercise, lifestyle and so on change pretty frequently. Is a glass of wine good for you? It very much depends on which day of the week you read the newspapers. Are those writers on diet who suggest that fat is not the killer the medical consensus says it is, to be barred from public discourse on the grounds of the damage to public health that may ensue, because of their allegedly mistaken views?

The whole point of PH's piece is that he disputes the medical consensus on anti-depressants. Many people share his negative view, as evidenced by the comments here, as do plenty of psychiatrists by the way. You disagree with PH on these drugs: fine - there's nothing stopping you presenting arguments for their defence, instead of seeking to close down the debate.

Well, the first thing that Wikipedia says about fascism is that it ‘is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism … Influenced by national syndicalism’. In terms of economics, we are told that ‘Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky through protectionist and interventionist economic policies’. But, to be honest, I’m never really sure what these various isms mean so I’m not sure how far this gets us.

Now, when we come to the detail, I don’t think that you are advancing an argument; you’re just flinging words around, with no attempt at supporting evidence. So ‘Democracy is being phased out and replaced with a commission-run directivocracy’. This sounds good, but what relationship does it bear with the truth? There is much more in this vein – ‘control freakery’, commissioners ‘hamstrung apparatchik slaves to the monster bureaucracy’ and the rest of it. And in your view, of course, this alleged ‘directivocracy’ will become like the axis powers before we know where we are.

I seem to remember you writing a few months ago – after your return to the blog, I think – that whatever the economic arguments for and against being in the EU you just didn’t like the thing on an instinctive level and so wanted out. That’s fair enough – an honest approach, which doesn’t need you to make things up as I think you’re doing in these latest posts.

Antidepressants are not ‘happy pills’. They do not make you happy. If you’re lucky they take the edge off the searing, crushingly hopelessness and allow you to focus your thoughts in reality just long enough to find a solid foundation for recovery. Taking them is not an admission of defeat or weakness, it is accepting help for a problem which can lead to devastating consequences.

Nor is taking antidepressants an admission that you have a brain disease instead of a complicated illness with psychological and social factors. Antidepressants can be the crutch people use to make it to talking therapy, just like pain killers can be the crutch people use to do physiotherapy. If they help it should be lauded, not chastised on ideological grounds (‘I know you feel better on tablets but I don’t think it’s right for you to be taking them’).

However complex the cause of depression is, we know that antidepressants can help. Even staunch antidepressant-hater Joanna Moncrieff has done a meta-analysis which suggests it, and the largest critical meta-analysis suggests they still work in severe depression.

They don’t work for everyone, but no drug does. In fact, antidepressants work at least as well, if not better, than drugs from the rest of medicine. They have side effects, but every drug does. Some say ‘they only numb you’, as if being numb sounds like a bad thing to someone who feels so gut-wrenchingly low.

Thucydides.
Although Paul P can speak for himself , I think you are under the impression that the 3 arms of the EU administration are in some way different from each other , I believe they are not , they all work to the same end and are composed of career politicians cut from the same cloth , as are Mr Cameron , Mr Blair , Mr Major , Mr Clegg , Mr Salmon , Mr Fallon , not sure about Mr Corbyn and the Welsh Version of them in charge of the assembly .
They all want the UK to be in the EU and work to ever closer union .
Not bright enough to know if this is totalitarian , looks very like it , however you dress it up .

"As I said, the EU may be unlovely, but it’s not fascistic, and I’d certainly be very interested in any evidence you might have that its aim is totalitarianism."

Fascism, put simply, is state-sponsored capitalism. It is nationalistic in outlook and totalitarian as a matter of necessity. From Wikipedia....

"Fascist economics supported a state-controlled economy that accepted a mix of private and public ownership over the means of production. Economic planning was applied to both the public and private sector, and the prosperity of private enterprise depended on its acceptance of synchronizing itself with the economic goals of the state. Fascist economic ideology supported the profit motive, but emphasized that industries must uphold the national interest as superior to private profit."

The EU follows this pattern. Democracy is being phased out and replaced with a commission-run directivocracy. The controls placed on industry and the economy tend always to weed out those companies not compliant with the EU's aims. Success accrues to those which do. This ever increasing control-freakery will lead inevitably to totalitarianim as one control begets the need for another, ad infinitum until de facto totalitarianism is established. To the extent that the EU is nationalistic, it is the 'EU family superstate' whose interests are to the fore.

"So for the evil conspiracy theorists – those who, like you, smell totalitarian fascism (though certainly not Nazism, of course) – you need to get all these disparate groups on board. I just don’t buy it, myself. "

In the first place I am not a conspiracy theorist and the EU is not a conspiracy. Its aims have been known from its inception. A certain Machiavellian approach to achieving those aims is not conspiracy. What I don't 'buy' is how a super-democracy is achieved by castrating democracy in each of the member states and traversing an era of commission-administered directivocracy. I don't see how the one becomes the other as a matter of course. It was failure to action these misgivings that led to fascist totalitarianism in pre-war Europe, from which of course democracy did not automatically flow.

None of the aims of the EU need necessarily be malevolent in order to justify opposition to those aims. The commissioners - divers nationalities though they might be - will themselves be hamstrung apparatchik slaves to the monster bureaucracy and its insatiable appetite for more and more regulation. This 'paved with good intentions' route to dystopia has been told in literature and evidenced in reality many times. That it cannot be seen by so many people when it is presented before our eyes is to me as criminally negligent as the 'innocence' of the Germans and Italians when it was within their reach to act against it.

All you hear now is of 'prosperity', 'more influence', 'a bigger say', 'a seat at the top table', et al. Of sovereignty, democracy, freedom, liberty?? No one cares. Bread and circuses have won - as they did in Nazi Germany.

Colm J
"...Many doctors and decent men and women are complicit in the Great Happy Pill Delusion"... patients are recruited into the "anti-depressants save me from my misery" campaign" (This piece.)

"People who are prescribed "anti-depressants" naturally assume that they are being given them on the same principle as they might be given an antibiotic or anti-inflammatory or some other drug aimed at treating physical infection or a diagnosed disease." (His previous piece on this subject.)

First, I agree that there is evidence that the drugs are less effective than advertised, that the drug companies have been dishonest, that the drugs are prescribed excessively and probably inappropriately, and that the diseases treated are imprecise (we do not know enough about how the brain works, so knowledge of these diseases is at an early stage in the process that the medical profession has had to go through with every disease it has attempted to understand and treat).

It is good that this should be publicised, in the hope that those qualified to judge and to act will do something about it.

But Mr. Hitchens goes beyond this.

You ask about terminology. "Anti-depressant" is accurate. "Happy pill" is wrong. The pills do not induce feelings of happiness and are not intended to. Perhaps more important than the casual ignorance of the term is the connotation of casual contempt it conveys.

I don't want to put words in Fred Solano's mouth. But the most important consideration has to do with anyone suffering depression who reads this stuff. It tells them that they are deluded dupes if they go to a doctor (who may be profiting) and takes the drugs prescribed for a disease which unlike "physical" infection or "diagnosed disease" might not exist as anything that is not (reading between the lines) all in the mind (whatever that might mean - the implication is one of weakness of will or character rather than illness).

Any such insinuation, from someone clearly without qualifications to talk on this matter, that risks persuading someone suffering from a dangerous illness to reject treatment that may well help (as it appears to do in many severe cases) is indefensible.

As I said before, we have here an instance of Mr. Hitchens again pontificating about something he has no expertise in, when such pontificating is potentially dangerous. And as in other instances, Mr. Hitchens proclaims himself to be campaigning for truth while studiously avoiding seeking out the truth that would demonstrate that it is his duty to keep quiet.

A wilful misunderstanding? Certainly not. Anyway, I see you’re still labouring your point about the similarity of the axis powers to the EU. As I said, the EU may be unlovely, but it’s not fascistic, and I’d certainly be very interested in any evidence you might have that its aim is totalitarianism.

The thing which most people don’t understand about the thing called the EU is how hard it is to tie down. One of the reasons why it’s so inefficient is that power is dispersed. So of the three main institutions, the Parliament has all sorts of weirdos, from both ends of the spectrum, some very pro-European, some very anti- and many probably just there for the expenses. The Council is various representatives of the 28 countries’ governments, all with their own ideas about what’s best for their own country (I realise here that we are getting into Mr Hitchens’ German empire territory). And then there’s the Commission, the biggest bete noire of the phobes. But actually the commissioners themselves are all appointed by their national governments and that is where their sympathies are most likely to lie. So for the evil conspiracy theorists – those who, like you, smell totalitarian fascism (though certainly not Nazism, of course) – you need to get all these disparate groups on board. I just don’t buy it, myself.

I agree, but no mention of that Jaguar on 7/7 - which is extremely worrying.

>
A Principal Intelligence Analyst for South Yorkshire Police has spoken out about the July 7th '05 London Bombings. Tony Farrell who has served for the police since 1998 is convinced as he can be that the bombings were a false flag attack carried out by intelligence agencies.

In July 2010 he was asked to compile a threat assessment report for South Yorkshire Police. His own research lead him to believe the major threat in the UK today is from an "internal tyranny" which the public are slowly finding out about. He believes the public's reaction to these facts may present a threat of public unrest.

but I couldn't help wonder why no one shouts out what a traitor he is even if that means they are sacked. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get on as the top story on the BBC News. What has happened to everyone? No ohe has any fire in their belly anymore? What we are witnessing is monumental treachery!

Posted by: Anonymous | 02 February 2016 at 07:09 PM

It's very easy to come up with brave ideas for others to put into practice. Of course they don't all agree with him but the BBC has decades of experience at mendacious propaganda. An event like that is carefully staged to look spontaneous. Are you seriously suggesting someone should risk losing his livelihood for one brief moment of purely local noteriety which wouldn't even make it onto the screen if it were felt to jeopardises the BBC's desperate pro-EU campaign. On any other subject the Beeb would delight in humiliating Cameron, but where the EU is concerned they are prepared to take a deep breath, swallow hard and hunker down together until Hurricane Brexit passes safely over.

Two contributors - Fred Solano and Ewan - have written here at some length here expressing their strong objections to PH's use of the term "happy pills". After reading their comments carefully I'm still rather hazy as to precisely what grounds they have for believing that this term is an affront to journalistic standards - as opposed to the standard term "anti-depressants".

In 2008 the then Labour government Immigration Minister Phil Woolas called for a limit to population and promising that immigrants will have to wait up to 10 years to access benefits and council housing under his latest reforms:
"Entitlements to benefits should be for citizens of our country, not other people."

The whole Cameron event is a non-event. No one cares about migrant benefits

>
Cameron is a like a left wing teenager who has ZERO understanding of the things which actually matter to the political Right, or even those with a sense of ENGLISH history. He is a complete joke, how on earth did the Conservative Party ever get him?

There has been little more humiliating in my entire life than Cameron's negotiations.

>
Above is my original post which I duplicated on John Redwoods blog, the last line he inserted "As an Englishman" (He knows I am English). So the fact he added that to emphasize the Englishness reveals his line of thinking. Yet again we have another Scot from some 'clan' who thinks like someone from a small country, not a powerful country like England, so rich in history and Protestant tradition, selling us out to those Jesuits and marxists in the EU!

I would also like to point out that I duplicated another post that I posted on here yesterday (I also posted on John Redwoods blog). But Mr Redwood inserted the word "Englishman" in my post (which I did not add). Again, i approve of him doing this under the circumstances and I think it gives us all an interesting insight into Mr Redwoods thinking......

......

Note the word "Englishman", this was added into my post....

"RB
Posted February 2, 2016 at 5:47 pm | Permalink
The whole Cameron event is a non-event. No one cares about migrant benefits

>
Cameron is a like a left wing teenager who has ZERO understanding of the things which actually matter to the political Right, or even those with a sense of ENGLISH history, how on earth did the Conservative Party ever get him?

As an Englishman, there has been little more humiliating in my entire life than Cameron’s negotiations."

People need to be aware John Redwood is absolutely spitting fire this morning. He is surely an example of a great MP! I am urging him to spark a leadership contest. Please help me by persuading him.

I would also like to duplicate a brilliant post that he wrote this morning on his blog in reply to me. I post on his blog under two screen names, one of them is "RB".

He actually commandeered my screen name and wrote the following, which I think he meant to put as a reply? But I approve of him commandeering my screen name under these warlike circumstances to get the best message accross. Remember I did not write any of this (although it appeared under my name). These are John Redwoods words and thoughts this morning.....

"RB
Posted February 2, 2016 at 6:29 pm | Permalink

It is bad enough that Mr Cameron has reneged so badly and so almost completely on what he promised in his Bloomberg speech.

It is worse that he now paints his “deal” as a great success.

It is just simple contempt for us that he goes further and says that on the basis of the “reform” he has secured if he had to vote today to join the EU he would.

It is breathtaking. Even though I knew we would be hereabouts I am still furious."

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